Addresses — Humbugs. 153 



set, but only one puts it at the head of the list. Eleven have Tal- 

 man Sweet; nine have Red Astrachan. Of the forty-one varieties 

 named to make the list of ten, sixteen get only one vote each. 

 The best resolution this society ever passed, was the one recom- 

 mending every man to look about him and select those varieties 

 that are successful on soil and exposure like his own. I know of a 

 practical horticulturist who, after years of trial, has settled 

 down on Duchess, Fameuse and Early Rose potatoes for apples; 

 no pears, no plums, no cherries. Hislop and Transcendent for 

 crabs. He wisely trusts the potato to supply all failures in the trees. 



In reading up the report for Maine, I am much amused to learn 

 that the tree peddler has been selling them " Pewaukee, Haas and 

 Walbridge as new Russians," the scions directly imported. As 

 they have had ten to twenty years experience with apple on crab 

 roots, they unite, in pronouncing them a humbug; " dwarfing the 

 tree and dying at an early age." The leading swindlers claim that 

 the reason trees grown on crab roots cost so much, is because they 

 pay three dollars per bushel for the wild crab seed. 



Perhaps some of you would like to invest in a new thing; the 

 pie plant, hybridized with the peach, giving to the pie plant the 

 peach flavor; roots one dollar and fifty cents, and warranted, re- 

 placed at half price. Another sharp agent will find out where 

 your best trees came from, and then he is furnishing from that very 

 place. There is no end to their ways, tricks, and the new and 

 wonderful fruits and plants they have just imported. 



Take the pear humbug; in just one place in Wisconsin, I be- 

 lieve pear trees have paid first cost. Outside the influence of 

 Lake Michigan, I know of but one tree as a success, and before 

 that tree dies, I want its history to be put on record, so that if the 

 poor thing dies, its good works may stand a monument forever. 

 That tree is a Flemish Beauty, planted in the town of Spring Valley, 

 Rock county, Wisconsin, by Rev. D. Alcott, in 1857; commenced 

 bearing in 18G6; has borne pears by the bushel for six years, and in 

 less quantity for four years more; sold at two dollars and twenty- 

 five cents to seven dollars per bushel. Amount sold, fifty dollars 

 and thirty cents. In 1871, it furnished for market, five bushels. 

 This is besides what have been used and eaten by the family and 

 admiring friends. It is needless to add that it stands in clay soil 

 and has not been highly cultivated. 



